ABOUT - Founding Producers
Harlem9 is a collaborative producing organization in Harlem, comprised of a group of producers from various production backgrounds and organizations. Our goals are to produce together in Harlem, exploring the past, present and future of black culture and celebrate our rich history of storytelling.
Founding Producers Included...
With a Cherry on Top Productions
Erin Cherry received her B.A. in Theatre from University of Nevada Las Vegas and her MFA in acting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, where she studied under Bill Esper and Maggie Flanigan. She is a professionally working actress, and has an extensive acting resume and has worked locally and regionally across the country, and abroad. She is an Private Acting Coach at Maggie Flanigan Studios here in NYC, and she is The Executive Director of The First Generation Nigerian Project. She is excited to be a producer and one of the voices of the Harlem9 team, and wants to use her producing skills to give back to her community, make opportunities for her people, and bring awareness about many talented artists that we live amongst. She will always do her best to be a leader in the community to make our voices heard.
Erin Washington
Erin Michelle Washington is currently at Oregon Shakespeare Festival as a Fair Apprentice for the American Revolutions Cycle, specifically focusing on engagement around "Party People" by Universes. She just finished a New Play Producing Fellowship in the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage. She graduated from Florida A&M University with a BA in Theater and later received her MFA in Acting from American Conservatory Theater where she grew her passion for the arts. In 2009, Erin started Soul Productions, a production company that exposes urban communities to emerging independent artists who are pioneering new approaches to music, theater, and film. #NEWPLAY! www.soulproductions.info
goodfilm
Deborah started Good Film, llc with her producing partner in Los Angeles, 2005
As an independent film company, developing and producing original material for film, television and theater with an emphasis on genuine diversity, both in artists and content.
Deborah started as an actor and playwright, her first companion plays Body of Myth were produced and well reviewed on the west coast, at the now defunct Bindlestiff Theatre a venue for innovative “bare bones” stagings of new work. Deborah went on to receive an NEC playwrights fellowship and write her first full length drama Cherrys which she later adapted for the screen winning Urbanworld Film Festival’s best screenplay (2002). Deborah began directing and mounting various staged readings and small equity house productions. She directed new work at the Tamarind Theater in Los Angeles, The Barrow Group in New York, New Dramatists and Fort Mason’s Playwrights Center in San Francisco. Primarily with new work by women writer’s among them: Barbara Bragg, Gloria Naylor and Suzan Lori-Parks. Deborah shifted her focus to developing material for the screen, serving as Creative Executive, then Director of Development at Sanford/Pillsbury Productions (through 2004). Deborah’s own scripts have sold to CBS/ Tales from The Cryptkeeper, and have been selected for FIND, Film Independent/LA’s screenwriter’s and producer’s labs as well as IFP/NY Film Market's Emerging Narrative.
Cherrys and After Greensboro have received reading with BlackBoard’s Reading Series (2009 and 2010 at the cell) under the creative direction of Garlia Jones and Deborah is featured in BlackBoard’s Playwright Conversations. Good Film has made the short film Anatomy of A Breakup -- When You’re Not There and shot a teaser for the feature film Cherrys. Deborah wrote, directed and co-produced her first Good Film feature, Vampires in Venice, which premiered at the Marché du Cannes (Cannes Market 2011) the film is being distributed by Bleiberg Entertainment.